Spring
winds curled dry dead leaves around a lonely wooden fencepost.
Perched on top was a medium-sized bird with yellow legs, yellow front
feathers, and white near his eyes. “You SEE, I’m such a
pretty bird,” sang the happy Meadowlark. His distinct
melodic phrases charmed the spring air and rode with spring winds
over brown grass that knitted together to hold the soil and formed
deep timeless roots underneath.
Nearby,
the female Meadowlark, her colors genetically drab to match the grass
and hide from predatory eyes, played her senses and trusted their
song to scan the surrounding area. Somewhere near was the perfect
spot for their nest. A place protected from persistent winds but
warmed by the welcome sun where she would pluck long stems of brown
prairie grass then weave them together to form a tiny amphitheater.
In that bowl, she would lay three precious eggs. Of her eggs, two
might hatch and maybe one of her young would survive to ride on
prairie winds. By instinct, she knew this would be her last brood,
yet, all hope grew.
“You
SEE, I’m such a pretty bird.” His song mixed with
the wind and the sound of the waving grass to form a prairie
symphony.
Out
of sight but not out of sound from her mate, she held onto a
fencepost, which angled in the lee just off the brow of a low hill
and was once part of a grand fence line born from hardship, labor,
and love. The fence had belonged to a pioneer family farm that in
this same spring, passed forever from them, a spirit, a family, a
farm, and a fence gone, yet always home to generations within the
steady passage of time.
“SEE,
I am such a pretty bird.” He sent his song to her on
the wind, lifted his wings, and in one seamless motion rode into the
endless puffy-white-cloud sky.
I wrote this for my dear friend Kyla.
ReplyDeleteI can just picture the field, somewhere in the spacious Bitterroots! Very nice.
ReplyDelete